OK, don’t blame me if I get hauled away to prison for libel (or have my coffee spiked with polonium), but I see I need to spell things out for you lot.

On second thoughts, let me go gently. I have a lot of stuff to write before I die of polonium poisoning.

Consider Shiv Nair. Consider Nair’s partners in business. In Malta.

Anyone in the diplomatic corps is a civil servant, answerable to the government, ultimately answerable to the Prime Minister.

Consider government agencies. Consider their various CEOs. Consider their connections, and their CVs.

Consider public money. How was it spent? Consider salaries. Then consider the deliverables. Consider the results. Consider the return on investment.

Consider government tenders and direct orders. Consider building permits. Consider capital projects, touted to us common people as “investiment ghalik”. Consider the volume of concrete poured. Now compare and contrast with the interconnector cable.

Consider the quality of the tarmac poured on public roads.

This is a small country where everyone is either someone’s brother or sister or sleeping with them. But still.

Corruption doesn’t have to come in a bulging brown envelope. Villains don’t always come with a club foot and a hair lip, clutching a bottle marked POISON. Not being fit for the job is villainy. Using a public position to further private interests is villainy too.

Malta is swimming in money. Follow it, and you’ll find the truth.

Baxter, can you mention a few examples where corruption was institutionalised?

I don’t think that the PN government was corrupt. Corruption permeates through our society; it’s our mentality where we want to siphon off money from any contract, sometimes hidden as commissions, and unfortunately people are reluctant to report such activities.

There should be a ‘corruption dept’ were one can report such things. I don’t think Fraud Squad has the will or know how. You need accountants for such investigations not police.

Dear god. I’m not equating anything. After all, like the meek little cretin that I am, I chose to vote for them at every election. But no one can deny their wrongdoings.

Why not acknowledge all the good that the Nationalist governments since 1987 have done for the country after the cesspit of corruption left by Labour? Why always try to equate them to Labour?

As to whether these two gentlemen are cast in the same (physical) mould, we will have to wait for a few more years before passing judgement.

You have my support on this, Baxxter.

One basic fault in your line of reasoning HP.. principles have been all but entirely sifted out of politics – in Malta and it seems much of elsewhere.

Principles have been substituted by convenience. Adhering to principles means being ready to perhaps never be voted to power…and that, for most aspiring politicians, is not convenient. Gone are the days.